MAXTRAD Campaigns for Fire Engineering Knowledge in Cambodia

• 15 May 2019
• Local News
• 2226 Views

The construction sector in Cambodia has grown rapidly over the last decade with high-rise buildings mushrooming across the country. As the sector continues to flourish, fire safety and fire engineering have become an important issue for the country. Construction & Property Magazine sat down with Mr. Bernard Mak, Director of MAXTRAD to talk about fire safety and fire engineering.

What do you think about the standard of fire safety and fire engineering in Cambodia?

Fire safety is very new in Cambodia, but thankfully, people are beginning to see the importance of it. Cambodia does not have a regulated fire code; a lot of firefighting system implementation in high-rise buildings either does not meet the safety level standards or is wrongly designed. If a proper fire inspection is done, a lot of buildings in Cambodia may not pass the score card.

Do you foresee any challenges for Cambodia’s high-rise buildings?

Yes, that is the project owner. This is because there are no government rules or law that they must follow. But if the project owners have consciousness, they know that their own project needs something like this, and they will decide to include in their projects. For example, some garment factories implement it because their customers require them to do so. So, if the customers do not require them to have it, they say they do not need it. So, a lot of commercial driving forces are helping to implement fire safety. The commercial sector is driving the standards!

Does MAXTRAD have any plan for promoting fire safety and fire engineering in Cambodia?

Yes, we have. We are introducing fire engineering to the university students and engineers. We also focus on helping engineers and sharing knowledge on what is the correct firefighting equipment to install. A lot of engineers do not know the proper design and implementation method. That is why we are actively involved to help local architects and engineers in their projects.

What has MAXTRAD done so far to promote fire safety and fire engineering?

This year we started providing workshops for university students. We currently cover eight universities and we have four to five sessions a year per university. That is about 40 sessions throughout the year, so we are in the universities almost every week. We introduce water systems, like sprinklers, and foam systems to mechanical students. For electrical students, we share information about fire alarms and gas suppression systems and for architects and civil engineers, we share about passive fire and means of egress. We also have specialised training courses for those who are already working, such as design engineers, architects, people in property management and also the loss adjusters from insurance companies. We also provide tailor-made courses based on international standards to our clients.

What are MAXTRAD’s future plans for expanding fire engineering knowledge?

This is our first year doings these workshops and we plan to do them every year for the university students. However, the information we share to the university students is very general. We also plan to establish an academy for fire engineering in the future. We wish to contribute to society by helping the local engineers and guiding them on what fire engineering is about and how fire engineering can help the future development of Cambodia.

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